All in all, I loved my experience at SOAS, as it enabled me to learn about international development and commercial law from amazing professors and gave me the opportunity to interact with students from all over the world.

Rubina Dawud
London, Fall 2009

Studying in London was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. SOAS is an incredibly diverse school with students from all over the world. The rich diversity in my classes was probably the best aspect of my academic experience. The classes were interesting and also taught by professors who engaged on a plethora of topics concerning different legal issues that dominate world affairs.

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) is part of the federal University of London, which was given its Royal Charter in 1836. The School was established in 1916 and has become the world's largest center for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The School's unrivaled reputation is built upon strong academic foundations including the size and expertise of its faculty, the scope of its library and its capacity for language teaching. Students at SOAS study law from the perspective of economic and social development through courses that take an interdisciplinary approach. Students register for masters level courses in the area of human rights law, development law and international comparative law.

Language Requirements

No language requirements. All instruction is in English.

Term Schedule

Students choosing to study at SOAS can opt to attend the university for the full academic year or for one semester in the fall.

Fall Semester

End of September to mid-December

Full Year

End of September to July until coursework is completed

Students have the opportunity to enroll in masters level courses while at SOAS in a number of areas unique to the goals and mission of SOAS.

Sample Course Offerings

Islamic Law

The course presents an overview of Islamic law in its historical and contemporary aspects in the Muslim world, from a comparative perspective. Based on modern English-language scholarship, the course covers legal history and jurisprudential developments as well as contemporary applications of Islamic law. In its consideration of legal history and jurisprudence, the course focuses on contemporary scholarship and the critical theoretical debates currently underway in the field. Family law is a particular focus in the sections on contemporary applications, including material from UK courts as well as from the Middle East and South Asia.

Indigenous Land Rights

The primary aim of this course is to explore the political, socio-cultural, and historical dimensions of Indigenous rights claims to land in settler-colonies. The course will specifically examine the jurisdictions of Canada, Australia, South Africa and the USA but will also examine theoretical work which applies to other jurisdictions. The course will critically engage with the concept and political practice of property, including the relationship between property and sovereignty. The course will also examine legal and other political responses to indigenous rights claims to land in different jurisdictions and transnationally. The course resonates with other LLM courses offered at SOAS such as ‘Colonialism, Empire and International Law’, ‘Justice, Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Post-conflict Societies’ and ‘Development, Environment and Law in the South’. However this course explicitly focusses on the question of land rights in settler colonies. Indigenous populations in settler colonies face conditions of poverty, continue to be politically marginalized on the grounds of race, are presently engaged in struggles for legal rights to land, and for recognition of past and present colonial injustices. These populations thus share much in common with populations in Asia, Africa and the Middle East in historical, political, economic and socio-legal terms.

Law and Natural Resources

This course examines international, regional and national legal and institutional arrangements concerning the conservation and use of natural resources. It introduces legal principles relevant to the conservation and use of natural resources in international and national law. This course focuses on the international law aspects of natural resource use and conservation, the North-South dimension and on individual developing country case studies.

Natural resource regulation is analyzed within the broad conceptual framework of the notion of sustainable development. As a result, this course examines simultaneously economic development aspects of natural resource regulation, social development aspects and environmental aspects. This course specifically seeks to make the links between the exploitation of natural resources for macro-economic development and subsistence and other uses of natural resources for food security and health needs as well as the links between use for economic development and conservation, for instance, in the context of broader policy challenges such as climate change.

Law and Policy of International Courts and Tribunals

This course examines international institutional efforts for resolving international disputes, including both adjudicatory (courts and tribunals) and non-adjudicatory (mediation, conciliation etc) institutions and processes.

The course considers the legal and policy issues that influence choices as to different approaches to disputes (for example negotiatory or adjudicative) and the choice of a particular forum (or fora).

The course focuses on the law and practice of the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights, the WTO Appellate Body, The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, ICSID, and the International Criminal Court.

The capital city of England and the United Kingdom, London is home to Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the British Library, Kew Gardens, Palace of Westminster Abbey, and Kensington Palace to name just a few popular sites.

With numerous theaters, concert venues, museums, and sporting events sprinkled throughout the city, students will have a truly bewildering number of options for exploration. With central access to train, bus, and air travel, London offers easy trips to other areas of the country as well.

As a student in the University of London system, you will be a part of 18 colleges, 10 institutes and over 170,000 students worldwide. As a member of the student union, you will become a part of this vast student network. In part due to these resources, being a student in London does not mean that you have to spend a fortune to explore the city. There are plenty of activities meant for a student budget, such as walking tours, museums and galleries or use of the public parks.

Each year the International Programs department and the Office of Financial Aid work together to create an appropriate semester or year budget for the program.